


Socks, Strings and Other Stupid Things

by hidden_snitch_in_an_alcove



Series: Better Camelate Than Never [5]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Crack Treated Seriously, Day 5: The More The Merrier, F/M, Gen, Merlin (TV) Season/Series 04, Not Beta Read, Puppets, Slight Canon Divergence, Sock Puppets, this is my niche now apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 03:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30015753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidden_snitch_in_an_alcove/pseuds/hidden_snitch_in_an_alcove
Summary: Arthur tells Merlin to shut up, they accidentally begin a puppet theatre company, everyone dies, Arthur makes the Medieval equivalent of macaroni art, the Round Table yodels, and Leon nearly drives everyone to tears.Not necessarily in that order.
Relationships: Gwen & Knights of the Round Table (Merlin), Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Knights of the Round Table & Merlin (Merlin), Leon & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Leon & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Better Camelate Than Never [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2209551
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18
Collections: Camelove 2021





	Socks, Strings and Other Stupid Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thenaughtypixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenaughtypixie/gifts).



> Gifting this to thenaughtypixie because this is yet another idea that was inspired by her several months ago.  
> It came to smite me in a dream a few days ago and, well, here we are. 
> 
> The words and ideas you planted in my head still inspire me now, and still make me grin when they pop up in daydreams.

It starts, as most of their evenings do, with Arthur lobbing something at Merlin’s head. 

Merlin, as the Destiny-Appointed-Mum-Friend, is doing what he does best and getting on Arthur’s arse about having almost died - again - earlier that day, and the Crown Prince himself is praying desperately for his manservant to put a sock in it. 

It’s a familiar routine. 

“I keep _telling_ you, Arthur,” Merlin snaps, punctuating himself by dumping Arthur’s balled-up tunic into the basket under his arm, “you can’t just throw yourself - your _very much non-magical self_ \- at creatures who can _only be killed by magic_. But do you ever listen to me? Nope!”

Arthur rolls his eyes. 

“I’ll remind you, Merlin,” he says, crossing his arms over his bare chest, “that _you’re_ the one who listens to _me_ , and not the other way ‘round.” 

Merlin, unsurprisingly, is not listening to the reminder, because he’s too busy reprimanding his employer for not listening to him. 

(Perhaps spending too much time around Pendragons meant he was picking up their propensity for hypocrisy. It would likely do him well to get out more, but alas; Destiny dictates that he stays put, lest the entire Kingdom goes to shit.) 

“...I mean, of all the hare-brained schemes I’ve seen you cook up over the years, this one _really_ takes the sodding cake…” 

Arthur attempts to tune him out. 

“...and I _told_ you! I fucking told you that _no_ , Arthur, running straight at a Goddamn _sphynx_ with that glorified cheese knife of yours is not going to make it go “oh, yes, of _course_ I’ll invite you into my home that I’d been so determinedly protecting barely a second ago! I’ll just go pop the kettle on, you go ahead and make yourself comfortable...”” 

...It doesn’t work. 

“...and _sure_ , I get that you have the mental capacity of a vegetable, but you didn’t even _try_ to answer the riddle! You don’t even pause to _think_ , you just- just fucking _throw hands_ -” 

Arthur grabs a pillow and buries his face in it.

“...Because that’s your answer for everything, isn’t it? Instead of an _egg_ which was the _actual answer_ by the way, which - how the fuck didn’t you get that? What _else_ has to be broken before you can use it…” 

It doesn’t block out the sound, but it is good at muffling Arthur’s screams of frustration. 

“...so of _course_ she got angry with you, but then instead of - I don’t know - _finally_ initiating your vegetable brain and retreating, you-- mmph!”

Merlin, wide-eyed, gawks at his Prince, tirade cut short by the sock now lodged in his mouth. He snaps out of it a second later, spits the sock into his basket, and glowers. 

“You,” he says, jabbing a finger at Arthur, “are disgusting.” 

Arthur ignores him and flops backwards onto his bed, hands tucked behind his head, relishing in the relative peace. 

“At least now I don’t have to put up with your incessant whining,” he sighs, closing his eyes contentedly. 

“My _whin_ -” Merlin chokes. “ _My whining?_ You--” He barks an outraged laugh. “Oh, so me being _concerned_ about your safety is just an annoyance to you?” 

“Yes, very much so.” 

Merlin splutters, only managing a few aborted words whenever he tries to form a response. Arthur, slightly concerned that he’ll do something wet and Merlin-esque, like faint from shock, lifts his head. He finds Merlin gaping, mouth gormlessly opening and closing, until his lips purse tight and his eyes narrow to dangerous slits, slicing into Arthur with the sharpness of his glare. 

“I’ll tell you what’s annoying,” he hisses, and he drops his basket to the floor with a thud that _definitely_ doesn’t make Arthur jump, before grabbing something from it, pulling it over his hand and- “ Look at _me_ , I’m _Arthur Pendragon,_ and _I_ don’t listen to my _very sensible friend Merlin_ when he tells me not to start a fight because I just _have_ to overcompensate for my _piddly willy_ by proving the gargantuan state of my _utter suicidality…_ ”

Arthur is pretty sure he’d be well within his rights to execute Merlin on the spot for everything currently coming out of his mouth, but his brain short-circuited the minute Merlin pulled the grubby sock over his hand and began using it as a puppet that is, apparently, supposed to be Arthur. 

He finally manages to tear his eyes away when he hears the third insult to his Crown Jewels, and does exactly what Merlin says he does best; jumps straight into combat. 

Tugging off his other sock, he pulls it over his arm and raises his voice to drown out his manservant’s. 

“I’m _Merlin_ ,” he begins in a mockingly high pitch, “and all _I_ ever do is cower behind trees until my _brave_ and _not-as-useless-as-I-am Prince_ can scare away the _big bad monster_ -” 

“ _I’m_ Arthur Pendragon,” Merlin yells even louder (and when did he manage to stick those button-eyes to his sock?), “and _I_ have to rely on my so-called cowardly manservant to drag my pea-brained arse out of the fray every other day, because I always get myself _nearly killed!_ ” 

“Oh, yeah?” Arthur jeers, ripping a red strip from his pillow case (mostly because he knows it’ll piss Merlin off further to have to fix it later) and tying around the sock’s “neck”. “Well, I’m _Mer_ lin and _I_ should be _grateful_ to have Arthur Pendragon as my Prince-” 

“Oh, you wanna talk about people who should be _grateful?!_ Well, let me tell you, Prince _porridge-for-brains-_ ” 

And on it goes. 

It becomes habit, on days that the two men are particularly riled-up, and though that initial argument only dissolved from bottled-up frustrations to creative insults of each other’s intelligence, manhoods, and anything else that came to mind (they stopped when it reached “your mum” because any insult to Ygraine was agreed to be insensitive and any insult to Hunith was agreed to be downright false), the sock-puppet exchanges that followed evolved into full-blown reenactments of nonsensical disputes with stubborn older-generation council members, ridiculous battle moves from Knights who thought they knew better than Arthur, endless streams of “ _do this, Merlin_ ”s and “ _do that, Merlin_ ”s from Gaius, Arthur and Kilgharrah alike (who Arthur now thinks is a crusty old hermit who lives in the woods and sends Merlin cryptic letters hidden in biscuits from time to time) and so on and so forth. 

It’s during a stunning performance of their escape from a sorcerer who wanted to harvest their kidneys for soup that their strange little passtime is discovered.

Leon, with all the grace of - say - Sir Gwaine, stumbles through the door, with a blurted “My Lord-” tumbling from his tongue.

He jerks to a halt the minute he claps eyes on the scene. Arthur and Merlin, similarly, are frozen where they’re knelt on the floor, hands encased in childishly decorated socks. All mouths are open (including those of the socks) and all eyes are wide. 

An awkward silence settles between the three men. 

Then, Leon clears his throat, and says: “Forgive me, my Lord, but- what are you doing?” 

Arthur and Merlin exchange a look. They both turn back to Leon (Leon doesn’t know if they know that they’re making their socks copy the movement, but he finds it incredibly unnerving). 

“We’re, ah...” Arthur coughs. He jabs Merlin in the side with an elbow. “Tell him what we’re doing, Merlin.” 

Merlin sends a heated glare towards his Prince, but turns back to Leon with something that’s failing pitifully at being a casual smile.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asks with weak brightness. “We’re-- er…” He flounders. “Puppeteering!” Leon stares. 

“...Puppeteering.” 

“Yeah, see?” Merlin waves his socked hand in the air. The upside-down dandelion that’d been perched on top in what Leon assumes was meant to be a thatch of blonde hair, falls off. 

“Okay,” Leon says slowly, “but... since when do you puppeteer?” 

“Oh, it’s a pretty recent thing,” Merlin says breezily, flapping the puppet in a dismissive gesture. “Only, Arthur here - can you believe it?! - is _obsessed_ with puppet shows.”

Leon glances at Arthur for confirmation. Arthur’s teeth are bared in a smile that seems a tad bit feral. 

“Ah, yes,” he grits out, “I just… _love_ puppets.” 

Leon stares. They smile back. 

He beams. 

“Well, why did you never tell me so?” he exclaims, throwing his hands out to the sides. “I love puppetry too!” 

And then Leon is off on a ramble about the intricacies of puppet theatre and the respective pros and cons of ventriloquism verses shadow puppetry, and is so caught up in his excitement over his friends _finally_ sharing his interest in the arts that he entirely misses the twin looks of “Oh Shit” dawning on Arthur and Merlin’s faces. 

* * *

Merlin should’ve lied. He doesn’t know how the hell else he could’ve explained away the socks pulled over his and Arthur’s hands (it wasn’t exactly a “he’s at the Tavern”-appropriate situation) but he knows, without a shadow puppet of a doubt, that he should never have gotten Leon involved. 

What had once been a reprieve from the collective stress of his and Arthur’s day-to-day, has now been turned into daily sessions that seemed to be designed for the very purpose of _inducing_ stress, under the guise of puppetry rehearsals directed by Leon. 

Who knew Sir Long-Sufferingly Sensible could get so worked up over stockings? 

Not Merlin, surely. 

Unfortunately, Merlin had gone for the honest approach, and now he and Arthur are sprawled on the floor, tangled in marionette strings that their self-proclaimed puppet master is furiously tugging on while yelling at them about their woeful inability to carry out what had been asked of them. 

It feels like a metaphor. 

“Get _up_ , you louts, this should be _child’s play_.” 

Merlin groans, letting his head thunk back against the parquetry floor, even as Leon pulls on another string, jerking his arm up uncomfortably. His hand flops like an over-boiled cabbage leaf. To his right, Arthur is muttering about having to now put up with insubordination from _two_ of his underlings and how he should have them both sent to the stocks for a week. Merlin almost wishes he would, if only it would mean getting out of puppet practice. 

His body is abruptly yanked upright and he blinks against the rush of vertigo to send Leon a glare. 

“You could care to be gentler, you know,” Merlin grouses. 

“And you could care to be competent at this, Merlin, but we can’t all get what we want.” 

Merlin gapes at the knight, struck dumb by the uncharacteristic bluntness. 

He exchanges a wary look with Arthur, who, frankly, looks like he’s one more harsh word away from crying (he’s always looked up to Leon, Merlin knows), and is strangely reminded of the time the two of them got caught up in Jarl’s net and the shitshow with the slave pit that had followed. He wonders if he and Arthur can catch a nap while Leon detangles them, just like they had back then. 

As if Destiny is doing its own little reenactment - with Merlin and Arthur as the puppets, though Merlin’s never doubted that that was the case - Gwaine chooses that very moment to make an entrance. It’s a testament to how bizarre a life he’s led that the roguish knight doesn’t even bat an eyelid at the strange scene he’s swaggered into. 

“Right,” he booms, hair bouncing lusciously with each stride, “what’s all this, then?” 

“Puppetry practice,” Merlin deadpans. 

“Cool, cool…” Gwaine nods as if this is perfectly commonplace. He sits, criss-cross-applesauce beside them, watching Leon undo the strings with a beaming smile. Arthur glares. “So what kinda puppets ‘you got?” 

“This, Gwaine,” Leon starts, in what Merlin recognises as his Grain Report Voice, “is a marionette. They are suspended and controlled by a number of strings, often attached to a central rod, that allows the puppeteer to move and manipulate the limbs.” 

“Sweet,” Gwaine breezes. “Ya know, I knew a Marionette once.” He whistles long and low, grinning in reminiscence. “I’d let her pull my strings aaaall damn day...” 

Merlin rolls his eyes. He feels the strings slacken where they’d been digging into his flesh, and glances at Leon to find him eyeing Gwaine consideringly. 

“Actually,” Leon says, “it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have an extra character…” 

A mounting dread begins to rise from Merlin’s stomach as he pictures adding more of Gwaine’s turbulent company onto his already extensive list of headaches. 

Gwaine, oblivious to Merlin’s silent screams for him to _walk away now_ , leans back on his hands and smirks languidly. 

“Aright, then,” he drawls, “I’ll join your puppet club.” His smirk widens. “But only if I get one of them ones that you’re supposed to fist.” 

* * *

After Gwaine, it’s like a dam has broken, and there follows a seemingly endless stream of newcomers who want in on the puppetry shenanigans. 

Percival had, one day, meandered by Gwaine, who had a ventriloquy dummy on his arm and his neck locked under Merlin’s armpit. He’d smiled as he walked past, paused, backed up several steps and stared at the frozen trio. 

“Uhhh.” He’d scratched his shaven head. “Whatcha got there?” 

Merlin had glanced down at the knight he had in headlock, then looked back up to Percival. 

“Gwaine,” Merlin had answered. 

Percival had nodded, deciding he didn’t want to ask, then remembered that he actually _did_ have something to ask of Gwaine. 

“Gwaine, have you finished borrowing my socks?” 

Gwaine and Merlin had exchanged another Look, and then - to Percival's complete bamboozlement - the _puppet_ had said: “You mean the fluffy ones?” 

Percival had gawked between the puppet and his friend, who’s lips he was _sure_ he hadn’t seen move, and - socks forgotten - had urgently whispered: “Is that _sorcery?_ ” 

“What?” Merlin had blurted, looking alarmed.

  
“Did the puppet steal Gwaine’s voice?” 

“Wha- no, he still has his voice, he’s just…” He’d looked at Gwaine helplessly. Gwaine had silently winked, and then the puppet (the puppet!) had answered: 

“I did indeed steal Gwaine’s voice... But it was in exchange for immortality.” Gwaine’s face had morphed into a solemn pout. Merlin had facepalmed. 

Percival, meanwhile, had simply been awed at the fact that he was in the presence of an immortal. 

“Wow,” he’d gushed to the puppet. “D’you think I could be immortal too, if one of you guys steals my voice?” 

“Of course!” the puppet had exclaimed, before Gwaine’s gaze had turned exaggeratedly serious. “But you have to _earn_ it, first” Gwaine had then reached into his pocket, and tossed a scrap of fluffy fabric in Percival’s direction. “Start from the very beginning.” 

Percival had nodded, unballing the fabric.

  
“It’s a very good place to start,” he’d agreed. 

The fabric had turned out to be a puppet, with googly button eyes and long, stringy brown tresses that might’ve once been a horse’s tail. The fluffiness and the hole at the very top had been vaguely familiar, though Percival had been unable to place why this was so. 

He’d pulled it onto his arm, ripping the hole wider in his enthusiasm. It’d strained over his hand like a fingerless glove. 

He was enamoured. 

* * *

Percival had brought Lancelot with him to the next rehearsal, as a sort of payback for him having introduced Percival to the others in the first place. Gwen had ambled in, taken one look at the holes in the various sock puppets and their pathetic decoration, and had added herself to the team, announcing that they needed “at least one person competent with a damn needle and thread”. Elyan had followed his sister, offhandedly mentioning that he’d had a short stint as a ventriloquist bard who’d exclusively performed at funerals during his mysterious four-year odyssey. 

And thus began the Round Table Puppeteers. 

For weeks, Arthur’s bedroom becomes a bedlam of strings, songs, swearing and sweat, aching joints and endless streams of complaints. Gwen and Gwaine can usually be found breezing around the room with snacks, hydration (Gwen) and pilfered poultry (Gwaine), Lancelot with an encouraging word ever-present on his lips, Percival practicing his ventriloquy under the attentive tutelage of Elyan, Leon’s voice cutting through the commotion with hollered “ _cut!”_ s and _“from the top!”_ s, and Merlin and Arthur are generally sat at the dining table, steaming beverage in hand while the proverbial wildfire burns around them, smiling blankly and telling themselves: “this is fine”. 

Although they may weep while they reap what they’d sown, Prince and Manservant both are warmed by the undercurrent of camaraderie welling up through the chaos. In these few weeks, they’ve managed to wrangle together something that belongs, not to Camelot, not to Destiny, not even to their respective father figures, but to them and their friends alone, and it is something that they can truly say that they’re proud of. 

This is why, when his birthday rolls around, Arthur actually finds himself excited to share what he’s achieved with his father. 

(He feels, as he approaches his father’s armchair, like a five year old presenting a portrait of Uther made entirely of wheat and pumpkin seeds, which Uther had briefly glanced at with a disdainfully raised brow and asked why Arthur saw fit to waste his time and resources.) 

(Arthur shakes the memory from his mind.) 

Arthur stares at his father’s ghoulish form, tracing his eyes over the dark circles, the pallid skin and the lank hair with a heavy sense of grief. He clears his throat. 

“Father?” he starts tentatively. Uther doesn’t make any indication that he’d heard. Arthur plows on anyway. “You remember that it’s the anniversary of my birth soon, right? Well- erm…” 

He bites his tongue as he falters. If Uther had been more lucid, the ineloquence would’ve gotten him a scathing reprimand. He almost mourns the reaction, when Uther remains silent. 

“I- we’re planning a feast, obviously-” And now he’s babbling, but guilty as it makes him feel, he suddenly wants to flee his father’s chambers - flee from the ghost of his father - as soon as possible “-and I know it’s tradition to bring in external entertainment, but myself and the others - the knights, I mean- well. Gwen a- and Merlin, too, they’re all part of it-” 

“Spit it out, Arthur.” 

Arthur gapes at his father, unsure if he’d truly heard the croaked whisper from those cracked, unmoving lips, or if it had been his imagination filling the blanks in one-sided conversation. 

But then Uther’s head turns from the window, and his dull eyes flash with a brief, impatient consciousness, and Arthur flushes hot. 

He feels… he doesn’t know what to feel. 

His father hasn’t spoken in months, hasn’t said his name or given the slightest hint that he knew it was Arthur speaking to him during any of Arthur’s twice-daily visits. 

And relief flutters in his throat, almost choking him, because it means that his father isn’t totally lost to him. 

But the fact that the first words out of his mouth were to basically tell Arthur to get on with it and shut up… 

Old, familiar shame curdles in his gut, making him feel small under Uther’s barely-there scrutiny. 

(He feels, again, five years old.) 

Arthur clears his throat, blustering, and continues gruffly. 

“We’ve been preparing something together, so there’ll be no need to hire anyone else. That’s all I wanted to say. That there’s no need for extra cost.” He pauses, unsure. “I hope… I hope you’ll be there. To see what I’ve been up to.” 

With that, he stands and brushes off his knees. Uther’s eyes have already drifted off of him like oil off of water, and he’s back to staring out of the window. Arthur wonders if he’s keeping a look out for Morgana, and is hit by a pang of bitterness. He pushes it away. 

He says one last clipped: “Goodbye, father,” turns on his heel, and makes his way back to the rehearsal room, back to his friends, and back to the overenthusiastic drilling of his First Knight. 

(Leon had been the one to find him, hidden in an alcove, crying with the portrait clutched to his chest. He’d prised it from Arthur’s stubby little fingers, thumbed away his tears and had exclaimed how talented Arthur must be to have produced such an amazing picture. He’d taken Arthur’s hand, walked him to his rooms and had made a great show of pinning the portrait to his own wall.) 

(That shitty grain portrait of Uther is still hanging in Leon’s rooms, along with a wall-full of artworks that child-Arthur had produced. They’re all total eyesores, and Arthur had once asked why he didn’t take them down, but Leon had only shrugged, smiled, and told Arthur that they add a much-needed pop of colour to his room.) 

* * *

Arthur’s birthday dawns, as most days in Albion do, with a light, spitting rainfall and cloudy grey skies. 

The morning is a rush of people flitting from place to place, servants streaming down hallways, nobles nattering in every nook and cranny, aromas of cakes and capon floating up from the kitchens and permeating the whole castle with a bright merriment that glows like a beacon through the foggy weather. 

The actual banquet hall is off-limits, with The Round Table Puppeteers sequestered inside, the decorations for the feast already having been set up beforehand in preparation. 

All members are dressed to impress, both with their finery and the impressive amount of sweat saturating the fabric, which Percival is attempting to rectify by waving a silver serving platter up and down to fan them dry, one by one. Merlin subtly sends a waft of magic his way to help him out, but his agitation must be throwing his senses out of balance, because everyone dries off instantly, some even ending up lunging for the water jugs due to sudden, unexplained parchedness. 

Thankfully, everyone is too highly-strung to demand an explanation, and the matter of their suspicious dehydration is left alone.

“Good work, people,” Leon calls, and the commotion settles until there’s nothing but nervous energy buzzing around the room. “A successful dress rehearsal. Well done. You should all be proud of yourselves.” There’s a general patting-of-backs and whooping (Gwaine) until Leon holds up a hand for silence again. “Now, we’re facing the real thing. This is what we’ve all been working towards for weeks: what we’ve come together for; what we’ve fought for; what we’ve shed blood, sweat and tears over. We may have hit a few bumps in the road, and there have been times - I admit - that I’ve wanted to put an arrow through someone’s eye-” He casts a not-so-subtle look towards Gwaine, who winks back “-or throw in the towel and walk out. But we got through it, and every single one of you has made me proud.” A few sniffles can be heard from the group. 

“I know you’ll be nervous,” he goes on, “I’m nervous, too. But what these weeks in the puppet theatre have taught me, is to trust one’s instincts… and that takes courage.” He smiles. Merlin catches Arthur’s eye with a grin. “Something none of you seem to lack.” He breathes in deeply, raising his voice. “Remember, when you’re behind that stage, that we are all in this together.” He punches the air with a hand encased in a sock puppet. “For the love of Camelot!” 

The answering cry swells through the room, sending each heart thumping with joy, pride and exhilaration, echoing through the halls and drifting through the open windows, and if the servants and civilians pause in their activity, a tinge of hope-filled magic tingling the tip of their tongue… 

Well. As much of the unexplainable, it is simply shrugged off and forgotten. 

* * *

Lords and Ladies filter into the candlelit room, muttering appreciatively at the heavenly scents from the ample spread of meats, fruits, cheeses and pastries. They settle into their chairs, servants already dipping forwards to tip wine into their goblets, which they sip daintily as they titter between themselves.

The room is set out a little differently than usual, with all chairs given a full view of the entrance, but it’s not strange enough to stick as a topic of conversation. 

What does become such a topic is the presence of the rumoured-to-have-gone-mad King Uther. It makes sense, they hum to each other, that the old King would turn up for his son’s birthday, but it does seem odd that he’d been deemed fit to be out of bed at all - why, he looks like a corpse! 

The other topic of conversation is the whereabouts of the Birthday Boy, and how rude it is of him to be so tardy - and to his own feast, no less, they huff and puff, shaking their heads in disapproval. 

(The more speculative gossiper suggests some magical hookey is involved, and that Uther is ritually draining his son of his youthful strength in order to remain on the throne for longer. It is possible that this sparks a society of conspiracy theorists who begin to plot a thwarting of Uther’s evil plan.) 

The buzz of chatter hushes when the entrance doors are thrown open. The guests turn their attention to them, expecting a fashionably late Crown Prince, only to find a large, rectangular board with another rectangle cut into the centre appearing in the doorway. Around the edge of the hole is a curling, gold motif, striking and lavish against the dark, red background. The hole itself is covered with a set of gold curtains. 

The muttering begins to rise again, puzzled and curious, but it’s cut off by the jaunty first notes of a tune and the opening of the curtains to reveal the likeness of a cave entrance, a wooden marionette puppet of a grotesque, dirt-smeared creature, and the opening lyrics of a song: 

_"Deep in a hovel was a dung-eating she-troll_

_Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo!_

_Repellent was the smell of a dung-eating she-troll_

_Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo…"_

The song continues on in such a fashion, other characters such as the she-troll’s servant and a few unfortunate travellers who’d stumbled across the cave and dropped dead at the stench also appear as the singing voices rotate between various soloists and a chorus of what is presumably the whole group. 

All jaws in the crowd drop, all eyes pinned to the stage as the scene changes from a cave to a castle, and the she-troll is received by a suspiciously familiar-looking King with a kiss to her knobby knuckles. 

_"She ma-rried a King who’s an A-class A-hole_

_Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo_

_King A-hole bed-ded the dung-eating she-troll_

_Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo..."_

A few guest chance a quick glance at the King sat at the high table. His face is unreadable. 

The song goes on to show the she-troll’s stepson falling dead and King A-hole blubbing over his body, only for the stepson to come back to life miraculously and kick his evil, smelly stepmother out of a window, where she lands in a wagon of dung and is wheeled away with a resounding yodelled curse. 

The whole group of voices harmonise for a final, swelling note and then the curtains close. 

Silence falls. 

Then, slowly at first and then all at once, the crown erupts into wildly enthusiastic applause, calls for encores ringing out, eyes getting dabbed with handkerchiefs, and the cries only grow louder when the eight members of the group edge around the stage, link hands and, as one, bow. 

It’s certainly a night to remember. 

Life goes on as normal after that. The group continues to meet up for recreational puppetry, but after Uther’s passing and the month spent tracking down all members of the conspiracy cult that’d plotted to off him, all else but courtly duty seems to fall by the wayside. 

Arthur takes on Agravaine as an advisor, he and Gwen are engaged, Gwen and Lancelot are magically driven by Morgana into a scandalous rendezvous that breaks the royal couple apart, Agravaine is revealed as a traitor and everyone is forced to leave the castle during Morgana’s coup, Merlin takes Agravaine hostage and forces him to confess Morgana’s plot against Arthur and Gwen, Merlin orchestrates the whole sword-in-the-stone schtick, Arthur and Gwen get engaged again, Mordred rocks up out of the blue and is knighted aka adopted by Arthur, Merlin is stressed, Merlin and Arthur cock up the decision with the Disir, Merlin is even _more_ stressed, Arthur executes Kara and Mordred runs away, Arthur starts preparing for the battle of Camlann, Merlin is so beyond stressed it’s not even funny, Merlin loses his magic, Merlin loses his shit, Camlann happens, everything _goes_ to shit, Arthur dies and Gwen rules with all of the rest of the very-much-alive Round Table around her for decades before the Saxons invade and she dies peacefully in her sleep as Camelot burns around her. 

And everyone else who Merlin has ever dared to love dies as well. 

Somewhere in there, between the Disir and Camlann, Arthur had been sitting on his bed, watching Merlin pick up laundry from the floor of his chambers. 

Merlin, it had seemed, had finally learnt to shut up. 

And Arthur had hated it. 

He’d taken in the tremble threatening to break the tight purse of his manservant’s - his _friend’s_ \- lips, the flare of his nostrils from the depth of his shuddering inhales, the deadness to his once-bright eyes, glossed over with a seemingly-permanent sheen of tears and bleariness from lack of sleep, set deep into the crook of purple bruises that hung heavy on his pale, grey face. He’d taken it all in, and he’d longed to take it all away; to take away what was causing his friend so much suffering, though he didn’t know what it was, because for all he liked to think he knew Merlin, the man was still very much an enigma. 

Besides; Arthur had never been good at confronting emotions head-on. 

What he _was_ good at, as Merlin-of-old _loved_ to tell him, was confrontation in general. 

He’d peeled off a sock, balled it up in his fist, and tossed it at Merlin’s head. 

Merlin had paused. He’d stared at the sock for what must have been several minutes. Arthur had begun to squirm, planning to pass it off as him having aimed for and missed the laundry basket… 

But Merlin had bent over, put down the basket, pulled the sock over his arm and risen to face Arthur. The tiniest of smiles had lit up on his lips, and then they’d opened. 

“I’m Arthur Pendragon,” he’d said, and Arthur couldn’t tell if his voice was high and reedy in mocking or from disuse, but he was so relieved to hear it that the distinction didn’t matter. “And I still don’t know how to pick up after my damn self because I’m just as much of a lazy-arsed cabbage-head as I was several years ago.” 

Arthur, already with his other sock in hand, began tearing a length of fabric from his red tunic and tying it around his socked wrist. He’d grinned when Merlin had begun squawking about having to fix the rip later, and had started soundly ripping into the other man with all the vindictive gusto he could muster, which had done nothing to mask the fondness he’d known had been lapping beneath the barbs. 

He’d found that he didn’t quite care when he heard the same fondness glow through Merlin’s own nonsensical insults. 

Of course, that had been one bright moment in an ocean of bleakness, and once Arthur was dead and the rest of his loved ones were gone, Merlin had found himself adrift in a darkness so dense that the thought of seeing a dawn beyond it was laughable. 

There were good times, of course; but a lighter shade of grey is still much the same colour as charcoal, and no amount of happiness seemed to be able to rid his days of the ashy tinge left behind by the world he loved going up in flames around him. 

One thing that Merlin found himself unable to bring himself to do, was to wear socks. 

Those very first decades after Camelot burned, the very sight of a pair of stockings was enough to send the All-Powerful Physical Embodiment of Magic blubbering like a maiden in a melodrama. 

The fabric toe tubes, he found, never failed to bring back memories of himself and Arthur, heckling each other in the Prince’s chambers between their various duties and chores with sock puppets wielded between them like googly-eyed swords. Those moments had been so intimate and so… so _personal_ , that looking at a sock felt akin to forcing himself through old love letters, or reading through Arthur’s diary, or holding the empty-of-life hand of Arthur’s corpse (again; he still had nightmares about those cold fingers slackly entwined in his). 

It never posed much of an issue, except during Albion’s chilly winters when his exposed feet would turn black from frostbite, though the logic seemed to go that immortal hoes would have immortal toes, and so they always recovered as soon as he set them in front of the hearth. 

He got into the habit of wearing sandals everywhere, because shoes without socks was undeniably icky, and with his messy hair and unkempt ensembles, people tended to assume that he was some sort of nomad or homeless person - which he didn’t refute because he hadn’t felt at home anywhere since Camelot - and simply left him alone. Which he was fine with. 

He was fine. 

(He was not fine. When Punch and Judy emerged as an English entertainment staple, Merlin almost found himself missing the staunch Puritan culture that Cromwell had enforced. Almost. He had, on many occasions, ended up landing a Punch to Mr. Punch’s wooden schnozz when he’d passed by the pop-up stages in the squares.) 

(He spent too many nights pressing an ice pack to bruised knuckles from socking a sock-puppet street performer in the nose, too.) 

(He couldn’t deck the animated Pinocchio - and his hand would probably break on that elongated sniffer anyway - but he did get a lot of satisfaction out of tearing apart the vhs tape without having even watched it.) 

(He loathed the Muppets more than anything he’d ever hated in his entire immortal life.) 

Arthur returns, one particularly gloomy evening, shivering and drenched from lakewater, and the first thing he does when Merlin reaches him - having sprinted across the grass bare-foot after his flip-flops went flying - is to complain (whine, more like) about his wet socks. 

Merlin responds by taking him home, getting on his arse about him having died, and stripping him down so that he could do his laundry. 

Arthur, both bone-weary and strangely fond, takes off his soggy socks and aims them straight at Merlin’s flapping mouth. 

The scream that Merlin lets out at the taste of a stocking worn on never-washed feet for fifteen centuries is, frankly, the most beautiful sound Arthur has ever heard. 

  
Later, they’ll curl up on the sofa, and Merlin will wiggle his feet beneath Arthur’s thigh (“Get your _gross bare toes away from me, Merlin_ -” “You permanently ruined socks for me, so the _least_ you could do is be their replacement-”) and they’ll sit in silence, because though they both have several centuries-worth of things to say, they both wordlessly agree that for once, perhaps, they deserve this smidgeon of peace.

_The end._

**Author's Note:**

> So... anyone recognise where the latter half of Leon's speech is from?  
> Or what Arthur's birthday performance is based on? 
> 
> Please leave a kudos and a comment if you liked it!  
> (Also feel free to pick up any grammar/spelling mistakes. This has only been seen my my sleep-deprived eyes.) 
> 
> Thank you!


End file.
